Disclaimer: I am not familiar with the tv show Stranger Things, except I know there is one. I know little about Shakespeare, except I know some of the quotes from having lived long enough and gone through enough English classes and seen enough movies to remember some of the more popular ones. And yet, what comes to mind today is that there are more stranger things going on in my world than I could dream up.

The Shakespeare quote actually goes “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Which I interpret to mean that our imaginations are powerful but limited given our upbringing and environment. Therefore, angels, spirits, and ghosts are real, even if I haven’t been trained to believe in them and don’t see them. And so are miracles. A question I have is whether they facilitate miracles. What I do know is that crazy things are happening in my life, and there is no other explanation than something outside my experience and my current way of thinking is presenting itself. I just don’t know what do about it. If anything.

By now, you know I’m big on backstory, so bear with me.

2024 has been a year of … I don’t know what to call it. A year of exposure, challenge, introduction, opportunity. Other years have also provided me with inexplicable events that now in retrospect I can see have been a soft opening to other worldly experiences.

I remember a time when I was about in 5th grade, attending Catholic school, and having to attend Mass every Wednesday if not every morning (it might have changed by then). Anyway, I was not feeling well and when I was supposed to be standing or kneeling, I sat down instead. Which was not allowed. But I did it because I “knew” – I didn’t hear a voice, but I knew – that God understood and it was okay to sit and let the dizziness I was feeling pass. It did pass, it was all okay. I never forgot that.

About 25 years later, my car hit some black ice and I spun off the highway toward a guardrail, then back across the lane to the concrete divider, and back to the guardrail. I saw a car next to me that had several small children standing in the back seat. I prayed to not let me hurt those children. I came to a stop, and when I checked the car, there was only the slightest rubbing of the black fender guard thing across the bumper. No dents, wrinkles, scratches; nothing. The car with the kids was out of sight. No one else hit me. No one stopped who could have seen what happened. Then one man was suddenly talking to me because he saw my car was on the side of the road, and he wanted to make sure I was okay. He hadn’t seen me careening around the lanes, just checking on me. Where he came from and where he disappeared to I do not know.

Another 10 or 12 years after that, I had a car issue with another car in another state. About 20 miles out of town, I lost power going down the interstate, but then it came back on, then it faded out, came on. I was able to turn around and head back to town. I had my two sons and a nephew with me. I prayed to just let me get these boys back to town safely. I made it to the first exit to town, which was still about 3-4 miles on the edge of town. The car totally died at the end of the off ramp. It was raining, but I was going to walk to the nearest house I could see, which was probably a mile away. Out of nowhere a cop car pulled over, from the opposite direction. He asked if I needed help, called a tow truck that would take 45 minutes to get there, and took the boys back to my house. They all disappeared, and my boys don’t even remember this, although they were teenagers at the time. As soon as the cop left, the tow truck immediately appeared. He towed my truck to a dealer, and took me home. The next day the car dealer said they had never heard of that tow company and there never was a bill for services.

To me, those were all angel encounters. And to me, angels and ghosts are not the same things. One is good, and the other … well, not as good.

There was the time the flashlight stopped working, I took the batteries out of it to remind myself to get new batteries, and then the flashlight turned on. With the batteries out of it, right there on the counter.

Just this spring my car, while in the garage, flashed its headlights twice. I was near the car but not in it, the keys were in my hand and the car was not turned on.

And then yesterday, while I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking my first cup of coffee, my 9 year old Maytag Bravos XL washing machine in the laundry closet next to the kitchen beeped three times. My reaction was that my load was done and I needed to put the clothes in the dryer. Except I wasn’t doing any washing. I had done laundry the day before. I walked over to check this out. As I always do, when I’m done with my last load, I prop the top of the washer open so the machine can dry out. It was still propped up. There were no lights on at the top of the washer. I have a lid lock feature so the machine cannot operate with the lid open. Not on. Lid open. And then the water turned on and sprayed inside the drum like it was starting a new load.

I watched this happen and wondered how to turn it “off” – because it wasn’t “on” that I could see. I was about to reach over the machine to turn the water supply off when the drum started agitating and spinning. So it was on?? There wasn’t a lot of water, certainly not enough to do a load. Not enough to even cover all the bottom of the drum but enough for me to feel the splash and to see it was definitely starting the filling cycle. Still no lights on the control panel. And then it all stopped. It’s wet yet – small puddles of water – a day later. (When I push the power button on, the panel lights up like it is supposed to, like nothing was or is wrong.) After a moment of shock, I raised my voice and told whatever It was that this wasn’t funny, I didn’t like It messing with me, and to go away, to get out of my house and not come back. Ever.

So that’s pretty “weird,” right?

I wish that was the end. I’m not sure it is, though.

Because the day before, my 9 year old GE Adora freezer (side-by-side on the refrigerator) decided on a rumspringa of sorts. The fridge was just fine and dandy at 37 degrees, like it supposed to be. The 0 degree preferred freezer temperature as indicated on a control panel on the front of the freezer read 16 degrees. Not good. A few ice cubes apparently caught in the chute of the water dispenser fell out and left little puddles on my floor. I took all the food to the chest freezer in the garage and emptied the ice maker and turned it off. I unplugged it to hopefully have it reset itself, as advised by Dr. Google. I also took the back panel off and vacuumed the coils. (BTW, the vacuum didn’t want to work unless I held the switch in the On position. Today that vac works just fine.) By the next morning, the freezer was back down to 1 degree. I set it to -2, but it hasn’t gone lower than +1. The ice maker has not/will not make ice now, and there is no water from the dispenser either.

That should be enough for any one person to deal with, I think. Should be. Now the refrigerator temp is creeping up. It’s been at 40 since yesterday morning, but now is 42.

I wish that was the end of this saga, too. I’m not sure it is, though.

Because I’m still being messed with, now with technology, my 5-yr old Samsung A50 (android) cell phone to be specific. In the past few days (1) two friends in two days had their phones go dead while talking to me. (2) I sent a text message to my friend, but she received it as an email from my phone number. (3) I sent a picture via text to another friend. But it went to a wrong number I cannot delete from her contact info, a number that has not belonged to her in years. And I have sent other texts and pics to the newer number, but it keeps defaulting to the old number. (4) I called a woman to schedule a Reiki appointment. I got her voice mail, in which her voice said her name and the name of her business. I left a message. My phone reads that I left the message with another person, a man I serve with on the Board of Directors for my HOA. But the woman did get my message and responded to it later in the day. The man did not get the message.

Now, it would be easy to say these are a series of coinky-dinks, and to rationalize them happening. Or that they are unrelated and I just had them occur close in time to each other. Or that I need to reset or replace my phone. Or it’s the protons in the atmosphere that are raining down on us. I think not. And in conjunction with everything else going on, I cannot let go of the idea that they ARE related. I just don’t know how.

The best I can come up with to give me some peace of mind is that The Universe is sending me a message, and apparently I’m not receiving it, so the format is changing up and getting stronger. But I am not understanding the message. I need to pay attention, but I don’t know to what. Everything???

So if you see me being hypervigilant, witnessing and observing and looking zoned out, it’s because I’m paying attention to the world, to my life, to anything new and different. It’s making me a little crazy. The alternative is to contemplate having my entire house rewired, and that makes me even more crazy! Gotta run now. I have an electrician here … just to cover all my bases.

I am very curious. What do YOU think I should do? What else should I be considering???